Things You Didn’t Know About Stephen and Chelsea

Hi gang, Stephen’s friend Wes here. You may remember me from such R&R blog posts as, “When Stephen Busted His Face Open.” Anyway, Chelsea’s fingers were too tired to blog today, so she outsourced it to me. Sadly, I agreed immediately and didn’t get a chance to talk to her about the important nuances of blogging, like “What kinds of things do your readers like to hear about?” and “How much will I get paid?” The only thing she told me was that my post had to be long enough that you have to scroll a little to read it all. So I decided to write about some little known facts about Stephen and Chelsea for those of you who don’t hang out at their house very often, and to make sure it’s long enough, I’ve added some details that are funny enough to be almost true.

Stephen and Chelsea’s house is deceptively large. I think it’s bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside. It seems like every time Stephen wants to show me something new, there’s an entire new room I’ve never seen before hidden down that back hallway. “You didn’t know about the scrapbooking room?” says Stephen. “Come on, I’ll show you, it’s between the guest bedroom and the walk-in humidor.” The bathrooms are unique too. One of them has Star Trek doors (except you have to work them yourself and they don’t make the noise), and the other bathroom has an outside door. You can enter the house through that bathroom. I think that could catch on, especially for families who have relatives that don’t get enough showers. Just tell them that’s the entry to the house and that you insist everyone freshen up before entering, just like they do in Europe.

Chelsea has a push-button stove. It sounds pretty modern, but don’t let that fool you.
You can’t tell from this picture, but the buttons are labeled “Low”, “Medium”, “High”, “Puree”, and “Whip”.

Stephen has swords. A lot of them. If I’m ever stabbed by a sword again, you should tell the police that Stephen is your top suspect. I say “again” because I’ve already been stabbed by a sword… one of Stephen’s swords, actually. It was one of those fancy cane swords that paranoid old men carry. I was looking at it and trying to put it back in the cane when Stephen said, “Careful, it’s pretty sharp,” and then I noticed I was bleeding.

The apron hook in their kitchen is probably the most overloaded piece of metal in their house.

There’s an even dozen of them at least. Who needs this many aprons? But the craziest thing is that in all of the fabulous meals I’ve had at their house, I’ve never seen Chelsea wear one. So the only possible explanation I have is that these are actually Stephen’s aprons.

One of the funny things about hanging out with Stephen and Chelsea is the look Chelsea gets on her face when Stephen says something outlandish. This happens often so I’m pretty familiar with it. Stephen will say something shocking (or inappropriate) and instead of looking embarrassed or shocked or angry, Chelsea just looks bemused – like she’s saying, Yeah, I know, he said it, he’s crazy. But honestly, we encourage Stephen’s crazy side to come out in conversation. Sure it’s entertaining, but it’s also great blackmail fodder for when he runs for higher office. Stephen says he got a BA in political science at UT, but I think he really got a BS.

Stephen is a terrible poker player. I don’t mean that he loses a lot (then I’d say he was an excellent poker opponent). It’s just that all of the action comes to a screeching halt when it gets to him. It’s like playing cards with a four-year-old at the table. He sees something sparkly and his mind goes away and we spend five minutes getting his attention back. And despite all this he wins money! It’s probably just a very clever ruse to distract us into losing money to him.

Chelsea has all of their DVDs in alphabetical order. I highly respect her level of discipline and control. She is definitely the organized one in that household. If I want to invite Stephen to something, I call Chelsea and she tells me if he can go or not. She has a list on the side of the refrigerator listing what they’re going to have for dinner every night that week. It’s very convenient for Chelsea for meal planning and grocery shopping. It’s also very convenient for me, since I know what nights are better for me to “just be in the neighborhood” at dinnertime. “Oh hi guys, just happened to be driving by… say, is that steak I smell?”

Chelsea is a huge baseball fan. That was a shocker for me. Sure, her cousin pitches for Rice, but she was a fan even before that. She ran the UT baseball fan club. I just checked – UT is a preseason #1 pick, they’ve been to the College World Series six times in the past ten years, and they won it all in 2005 while Chelsea was there (I think). Coincidence? I don’t know, but if the baseball team was that good, imagine how good the booster club must have been.

There you go, a little slice of life from Hurst Castle. To sum it up, it’s a little crazy sometimes but always fun. Did I miss anything? Definitely add your observations to the comments if you know something I don’t.

I love baseball too. Mason’s big boy room has been transformed into a baseball room. We are starting him young. Also, I love that you have your DVD’s in alphabetical order. My husband insists on having ours that way as well. At first I thought he was crazy, but now I guess I’m crazy too, because I can’t stand it if someone touches them and doesn’t put it back in the correct spot.

OH Chels…the stove. I haven’t seen one of those since like the mid 70’s. PW’s stuff will be more fun to cook on a new stove. 🙂 But hey … only 3 of my burners currently work so it just proves they don’t make stuff like they used to!

15.Rachel | February 4, 2010 at 3:37 pm

I think the door in the bathroom is for their future hot tub/pool installation. That way, on your way in from the hot tub to brag a cigar from the humidor, you can towel off and not get Chelsea’s treasured brick floors wet.

16.Rachel | February 4, 2010 at 3:39 pm

I’m curious about Stephen’s swords… How does that work when a pocket knife scares you, Chel?

Very cute! Mister is big into ordering things too, especially the DVD’s. His mild form of OCD is endearing. =)

18.Mother-in-law | February 4, 2010 at 5:34 pm

They do have a big house, and I am jealous of that! Stephen has been collecting those swords since he was a kid, I know, since we bought him most of them, maybe all of them! And, I am scared of knives too.